This invention relates to laser systems, and particularly to laser systems comprising optical fibre amplifiers.
Single mode optical fibres doped with rare-earth ions are known to exhibit optical amplification in useful regions of the spectrum when longitudinally--pumped using light of a shorter wavelength than that at which the fibres are caused to lase. This pump wavelength corresponds to an atomic absorption of the dopant ion.
As is well known in the art, when a laser is pumped with light at the pump wavelength, the ions in the laser are excited by the pump, and the laser is caused to lase. Not all of the pump light is converted to the output light of the laser, the remainder being known as the remnant pump. The remnant pump is often unusable, and so reduces the efficiency of the system.
A silica or multi component glass fibre doped with a few hundred parts per million of erbium ions is known to show optical gain at approximately 1536 nm. Suitable absorption bands in which to pump the amplifier occur at 540 nm, 650 nm, 800 nm and 980 nm. Some of these pump bands are more efficient than others. This is due to the existance of parasitic excited state absorption (ESA) of pump photons at certain wavelengths for example, erbium in silica glass has no ESA at 650 nm and 980 nm, but has significant amounts at around 800 nm. Much more efficient performance results are achieved, therefore, using a pump wavelength of 650 nm or 980 nm, rather than a pump wavelength of 800 nm.
Unfortunately, there is a scarcity of pump lasers available which are capable of pumping in the 650 nm band. In addition, the 650 nm band is not as quantum efficient as the 980 nm, but there is also a shortage of radiation sources capable of producing an output at around 980 nm. As a result optical fibre amplifiers are generally pumped at around 800 nm by, for example, high-power GaAlAs laser diodes, even though this pump band does not give the most efficient performance results.